Dunedin travel guide

Top 10 sights in Dunedin

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1

   Larnach Castle

   A mock castle on the ridge of the Otago Peninsula, built between 1871 and 1887 by a banker and politician who imported craftsmen and stone for it. He shot himself in Parliament House in 1898; the house passed through decades of neglect before its restoration.

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2. 

   2© James Dignan (en:User:Grutness) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St. Joseph's Cathedral

   The Catholic cathedral of Dunedin, opened in 1886 to a design by Francis Petre in Gothic Revival. Money ran out with only the nave and aisles built, so the intended transepts and tower were never added and the east end is a temporary wall a hundred and forty years old.

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3. 

   3© Grutness at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Otago Museum

   A museum founded in 1868 and one of the largest in New Zealand, with a Maori collection of southern provenance, a Pacific gallery, and a tropical butterfly house that people visit in winter for the warmth as much as the insects.

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4. 

   4

   Dunedin Botanic Garden

   New Zealand's first botanic garden, begun in 1863 at the northern end of the city. Its rhododendron dell holds one of the larger collections in the southern hemisphere and is at its best in October, and the upper garden is native bush with a bird aviary.

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   5

   Dunedin Synagogue

   The synagogue of Dunedin, whose congregation was formed in the 1860s during the Otago gold rush and is among the oldest in New Zealand.

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6. 

   6© Benchill · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St Michael's Antiochian Orthodox Church

   An Antiochian Orthodox parish in South Dunedin, serving Orthodox Christians across the lower South Island, most of them from families that arrived from the Levant and, more recently, eastern Europe.

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7. 

   7© The original uploader was Grutness at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Hocken Collections

   A research library and archive at the University of Otago, begun with the collection a doctor gave the city in 1910. It holds the country's foremost gathering of early manuscripts, maps and photographs, along with Māori material.

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8. 

   8© BMahalski · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Museum of Natural Mystery

   A private museum of bones, taxidermy and ethnographic oddities in Dunedin, arranged in the manner of a Victorian cabinet of curiosities. It opens limited hours and is unlike any public museum in the country.

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9. 

   9

   St. Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin

   The Anglican cathedral on the Octagon, consecrated in 1919, with the only stone rib-vaulted nave in New Zealand. Its Oamaru limestone front faces the town hall across the square.

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10. 

    10© Grutness at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Dunedin Public Art Gallery

    The oldest public art gallery in New Zealand, founded in 1884 on the proceeds of Otago's gold. Its collection includes Monet and Turner alongside a strong holding of New Zealand painting.

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1. 

   1© Pakoire · CC BY-SA 3.0

   The Octagon

   An eight-sided plaza laid out in 1846 at the point where Dunedin's two early settlements were finally joined by cutting away Bell Hill. A statue of Robert Burns, whose nephew led the Scottish settlers here, sits at its centre, with the theatre, art gallery and town hall around it.

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   2

   Olveston Historic Home

   A Jacobean-style house of 1906 designed by Ernest George for the Theomin family, given to the city in 1966 with everything still in it — the furniture, the paintings, the kitchen equipment and the family's Japanese collection. It is the most complete Edwardian house in the country.

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   3

   First Church of Otago

   The Presbyterian church of 1873 whose fifty-six-metre spire is visible from the harbour, designed by Robert Lawson in Oamaru stone. It is the mother church of the Otago settlement, founded by Free Church Scots who arrived in 1848.

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   4© ChristchurchHistorian · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Tunnel Beach

   A cove reached through a tunnel that John Cargill had cut by hand through the sandstone in the 1870s so that his daughters could bathe in private. Sea-carved arches and stacks stand off the cliff, and the walk back up is steeper than the walk down.

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   5© W. Bulach · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Knox Church

   The largest church building in Dunedin of any denomination, at the north end of George Street near the university. It was built in 1876 for the city's second Presbyterian congregation to R. A. Lawson's Gothic design, and its spire shows above much of the centre.

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6. 

   6© Pakoire · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Toitū Otago Settlers Museum

   New Zealand's oldest history museum, founded in 1898 and covering the country south of the Waitaki with Dunedin at its centre. A wall of settler portraits, the 1872 Fairlie locomotive Josephine and a restored 1950s bus fill its halls.

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   7

   University of Otago Registry Building

   The clocktower building of the University of Otago, built in 1879 in Scottish baronial style from dark basalt with pale stone dressings. It stands beside the Leith and is the emblem of the country's oldest university.

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8. 

   8© Antilived · CC BY-SA 3.0

   New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame

   The New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, inside the old railway station at Dunedin. It records the country's athletes across rugby, mountaineering, rowing and the rest.

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   9

   Ocean Beach Railway

   A short heritage line beside Ocean Beach at St Kilda, which ran its first train in 1963 and so became the first operating heritage railway in New Zealand. Its founders were also the first in the country to save a steam locomotive with the aim of running it again.

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10. 

    10© Ulrich Lange, Dunedin, New Zealand · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Victory Beach

    A beach on the Otago peninsula near Dunedin. It is named after a ship wrecked there in 1863 and is known as a landing place for yellow-eyed penguins and seals.

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